Using Campaign Advertisements to Assess Campaign Processes

Scholars seeking to examine the effect that campaign processes have on election outcomes have focused largely on the behavior of voters. In contrast, the behavior of candidates, particularly with respect to the information that candidates communicate to voters, has received limited attention in the literature. The dearth of work in this area stems in part from a paucity of data that allows candidate behavior to be reliably and systematically measured. In this paper I assess a data source that may be used to overcome this limitation: televised campaign advertisements. After discussing the strengths and weaknesses of these data, I offer a sample analysis using data collected from all available campaign advertisements produced by candidates competing in the 1976 through 1996 presidential campaigns. Specifically, I examine the factors that influence these candidates' decisions to address concerns that are salient to the public in their campaign messages.